Nina Mirnig (born 1982) received her BA (2004), M.St. (2005) and D.Phil. (2010) in Oriental Studies/Sanskrit from Oxford University. Her research interests include the development and history of early Śaivism and its literary traditions (in particular early Śaiva tantras and manuals as well as the Sivadharma corpus), rituals and beliefs concerning death and afterlife in Hinduism, the formation of early Śaiva devotional practices, and the study of epigraphical material as a source for religio-political and cultural history, with special focus on Nepalese inscriptions of the Licchavi period.

Nina Mirnig joined the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia in June 2014 as a member of the FWF project Visions of Community. In this framework she co-organized the VISCOM conference "Tantric Communities in Context: Sacred Secrets and Public Rituals" (together with Vincent Eltschinger and Marion Rastelli), 5-7 February 2015, and worked on her book manuscript "Liberating the Liberated. A History of the Development of Cremation and Ancestor Worship in the Early Śaiva Siddhānta".

Since July 2015, Nina Mirnig works on the FWF project "The Śivaliṅga Cult on the Eve of the Tantric Age: A Study and Critical Edition of the Śivadharmaśāstra Chapters 1-5 and 7-9".

Publications

Monographs

“Liberating the Liberated. A History of the Development of Cremation and Ancestor Worship in the Early Śaiva Siddhānta.” Doctoral Thesis, Oxford University, 2010. Book manuscript currently under preparation.

“Favoured by the Venerable Lord Paśupati. Tracing the Rise of a new Tutelary Deity in Epigraphic Expressions of Power in Early Medieval Nepal,” in the Indo-Iranian Journal, Volume 53, 3/4, Brill. (2013)

“Śaiva Siddhānta Śrāddha. Towards an Evaluation of its Performance in the Early Medieval Period,” in Puṣpikā. Tracing Ancient India Through Texts and Tradition. Contributions to Current Research in Indology. Oxbow Books, Oxford. (2013)